


No Absolutes

by onereader



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Don’t copy to another site, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, Post-War, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21671719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onereader/pseuds/onereader
Summary: Prompted bylittlebozsheep- I hope you enjoy it!
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 16
Kudos: 48





	No Absolutes

Draco understood worship. He understood unquestioning belief. He had grown within the walls of veneration and glorification of the past, of the few, of the _pure._ He understood the lifting up of one man above others, the blood-wet sweetness of promised elevation, of life eternal. 

Draco understood sacrifice. He understood the swallowing down of horror. He had yielded his own child-soft flesh to a cause greater than himself, mighty and right. He understood the debasement of self, the prostration before power that cracked reality (cracked his heart, his mind, but not— _not_ —his soul.)

Draco understood betrayal. He understood the glint of a blade in the dark. He had held it, wielded it; he had sheathed the edge of it in his own body, an intimate wounding, invisible, mortal. He understood the sick terror of disbelief, stone to sand to dust, ash in his mouth (turning his back, walking away.)

Traitor. Apostate. Viper.

He had found a Muggle church after the end of it all. Visited daily.Watched. Listened. Learned. Their Christ, nails driven into pale marble palms, thorns tangled in hair, a grimace of agony. He learned about sin, about penance, about confession and repentance. He learned about dogma and he understood.

They sang, sometimes, the Muggles in their church. They whispered, murmured, wept. Peace be with you. _And also with you_. There was peace now, but he didn’t know what to do with it. His peace was unearned, and he was undeserving. 

Draco understood betrayal. Silver-sharp incisions, his mother’s tears. Every tie, umbilical-essential, cut without a word. Every hope and expectation discarded, every sacred cow slaughtered. He understood rejection, repudiating every poison-soaked lie he had been fed since he had first been nursed. 

Draco understood sacrifice. He understood what it meant to tell your truth. Every rock upturned, blind and crawling secret parts of himself bared to the light. But this light was golden, sun-hot, the bringer of spring—a cleansing fire. He understood surrender, showing his soft belly, his scars, his hope; laying down his pride like a dull blade, useless in the face of the never-defeated. 

Draco understood worship. He understood the shattering pain of epiphany. He lived now in the sprawling starlit expanse of experience, orbiting a storm of power and righteous rage. He understood making offerings, falling to his knees and receiving salt-sweet sacrament from the one who looked down at him with terrible, encompassing, forgiveness.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, drop me a comment and come and say hi on [Tumblr](https://shealwaysreads.tumblr.com/) ❤️


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